Hericombe - 1970's Western Region

[BluenGreyAnorak]

A long time ago, on a version of RMweb that now seems far, far away, I started a layout thread for a Western Region-based railway, Rodents Vale, which you can read about HERE. Unfortunately, it didn’t get much further than laying the main running lines before the need for a house move loomed, and the whole thing was dismantled.

 

In the new house, I had a double garage to play with and dedicated the rear half to building a new layout. However, because it took so long to get going, needing to build the entire room before even thinking about a railway, I fell out of the habit of RMweb and didn’t start a new thread for it. Progress has picked up in the last couple of years though, so I thought I’d dive back in now and see what everybody thinks!

 

The new train room was constructed as an insulated box across the rear of the garage and left me with a useable space of approximately 5.1 x 2.5m.

 

 

Into that I built a similar framework to the previous layout to provide an open frame arrangement on which to build the track beds and give plenty of storage underneath.

 

 

 

The layout itself was to be along similar lines to the one I’d aborted, to the following basic criteria:

 

·       Early ‘70’s Western Region (with the option for early ‘80’s too)

·       Station big enough for a 5+2 HST set

·       Wagon repair yard

·       Loco servicing facility

·       Fiddle yard giving access to the scenic section in both directions

·       Space to at least walk into the room without the need to duck under

·       Space for a small workbench

 

Whilst that was fine in principle, the layout of the room was completely different and so a new track plan was called for. This is what I came up with:

 

 

 

The station is along the back wall, above the East fiddle yard and FY junction. It’s reached by a single track branch from the junction shown bottom left. It was originally going to be double track, as befits the size of the station, but space was tight and I had to compromise on that in the end. I was pleased to keep the junction in the design though, as it adds considerably to the operational interest.

 

I'm quite pleased with the track plan as it's very flexible in how it can be used. Ultimately, it's designed for three operators (I play trains with a small group of friends) but it can be run by one person as, essentially, a FY to terminus layout.

 

You may have guessed that operation is what it’s all about for me. Whilst I greatly appreciate fine scale modelling, by and large that’s not what I want to spend my time on. At least not until the railway as a whole is much further progressed, anyway. To that end, the track is 00 Peco Code 75 and the stock is, with a few minor exceptions, ready to run. I do like researching things like proper train formations (and then making the inevitable compromises associated with space limitations) and I want the layout to look plausible, but probably not to the nth degree that some folks go to.

 

Anyway, that’s probably enough to start with. I’ve been building this thing for just over ten years now, so I’ll add more detail and bring it up to date over the next few posts!

 

Index

 

Layout

Cassettes

Diesel Depot Control Panel and First Signal

Diesel Depot and Junction Point Motors - Part 1

Diesel Depot Point Motors - Part 2

Fiddle Yard

Fiddle Yard Control Panel

Main Lines

Scenery - First Embankment and Tunnel to Fiddle Yard

Scenery - Cleaning Shed

Station and Depot Boards

Station and Depot Track

Station Point Motors

Wagon Repair Yard

Wagon Repair Yard Control Panel

Wiring

 

Stock

Bogie Bolsters

Cowans Sheldon 6.5t Crane

Freightliners

Loriot Wagon and Traxcavator

 

Miscellaneous

Stock Cataloguing

 

Edited April 4 by BluenGreyAnorak

[jamest]

Hi,

 

Very envious of the space you have. Looks like a well built, nice and comfortable, environment.

 

Also looking forward to seeing your progress, I get your intention and the balance of enjoyment and realism. I have built several layouts that are mostly linear, but really like the idea of something to watch trains circulating. You seem to have built in some operating interest too.

 

All the best,

James

[stivesnick]

Hi 

 

It is not clear from the track plan if the fiddle yard junction includes crossings or double slips. The later would be required to achieve direct access to the fidlle yard. I would also be tempted to put the east fiddle yard at the front of the board to improve access and it would make it easier to change stock in the fiddle yard whilst trains continued to operate on the main run.

 

Depending on how many locomotive hauled passenger trains you intend to run, the railway company would have wanted to provide some loco holding sidings at the terminus, rather than clogging up the branch line with locos running to and from the depot.

 

Hope this helps. 

 

Regards 

 

Nick 

[BluenGreyAnorak]

Thanks for the thoughts, Nick. The fiddle yard junction includes two single slips to allow trains to and from each yard to leave and join the appropriate tracks. The East FY is really just storage sidings and is hidden from view during normal operation. All trains are assembled in the West yard and then positioned as required via a line that links the two. 

 

The FY was the first part that I built and I'll detail it in a post later today, when hopefully all will become clear!

 

Your second point is a fair one but there are enough places to temporarily stash a loco or two if required. Running out to the depot though is very much part of the operational interest and as the branch is short, shouldn't cause too many problems.

[BluenGreyAnorak]

Fiddle Yard

 

So, having built the room and the supporting framework, the first part of the layout that I tackled was the fiddle yard. This comprises two separate yards, representing the rest of the world east and west of the scenic section, connected by a fairly complicated junction that would feed into the main lines:

 

 

 

As mentioned above, the East yard would eventually be hidden beneath the approach to the station and so is more of a staging area. It comprises three roads, the longest of which is designed to take my HST set.

 

The West yard is where the action is, with three roads plus a receiver for a cassette (more of which later), and a switchable programming track.

 

Because of the hidden nature of much of this, I installed some cameras to keep an eye on it all. I picked up a four channel CCTV controller and monitor from eBay whilst the cameras, which are intended for reversing cars, came from Amazon:

 

 

I made some aluminium brackets for the cameras so they could be strategically positioned around the yards:

 

 

 

 

These all worked really well until I built the station above, when it became apparent that they’re not so good in the dark. I then added an LED strip along the wall and normal service was resumed:

 

 

 

The only thing left to do to complete the fiddle yard is to install some infra red sensors under the track at the entrance to each of the East yard sidings, to show if a train is fouling the points.

Edited March 1 by BluenGreyAnorak

[BluenGreyAnorak]

Fiddle Yard Control Panel

 

I wanted the control panel for all of this to be easy to use and so designed it around route setting via diode matrices. This was a steep learning curve as I’d never done anything like this before but after much drawing of wiring diagrams and truth tables, it all came together in the end!

 

 

The panel includes a DC controller that's linked to the cassette road of the West FY which, via a rotary switch, can be set to DC, DCC, DCC Prog or an input for use with a Sprog II. It also includes a 5v output for the IR detectors mentioned above, created by adapting an off-the-shelf USB socket circuit, and a CDU for driving the Peco solenoid point motors.

 

To simplify the wiring (ha!), I decided to use a pair of Tam Valley 6 channel frog juicers for switching the polarity of all of the points in this area.

 

One of the more complicated aspects of the design was coming up with a circuit that would activate on the press of one button and then deactivate on the press of another. This was needed to drive the indicator lights for the route setting, as they required a constant feed in contrast to the pulse needed for the point motors. I eventually cracked this by using 12v relays in pairs (hidden under the panel with the DCC handset on above) like so:

 

 

This has not been without issue though, as time has shown that the relay coils don’t really like the voltages that come out of the controlling diode matrix and they’re starting to stick. This aspect is on the cards to be re-designed in the near future, possibly with solid state relays.

 

The face of the panel comprises two layers of clear Perspex with the mimic diagram between them. Set into the bottom layer are the 3mm flat top LED’s that are used to indicate the routes selected and various other functions. These are bright enough to shine through the paper of the mimic diagram but disappear when not in use. They look a lot brighter in the photo than in real life:

 

 

Operation is really simple: there are five possible routes in and out of the FY, selected by one of the five buttons in the centre. The route to or from a siding is then chosen by the button at the end of each. It all works very well although there are details that I’ve improved on for later panels. It may also get re-designed to accommodate different point motors as I’d like to move away from the solenoids at some point.

 

 

Edited March 3 by BluenGreyAnorak

[BluenGreyAnorak]

Main Lines

 

With the fiddle yard up and running, it was time to press on with the main running lines. Construction was fairly typical – a 9mm ply track bed on a variety of risers to create the gradients at roughly 300mm centres. In an effort to aid sound deadening, I included a piece of cork between the top of each riser and the underside of the track bed, which was glued in place to avoid any transmittance through fixings. It’s difficult to judge whether this is really effective but I figured it can’t do any harm.

 

 

With the track bed in place, track laying followed close behind. I wanted the main lines to have a distinct ballast shoulder so I invested in a large quantity of chamfered cork edgings from Charles Cantrill Ltd:

 

Chamfered Cork for Tracklaying

 

I then cut strips of regular cork for the centres so that the overall spacing created the correct width for the ballast:

 

 

It was around this time that I had a minor crisis, which related to an APT-E that I’d acquired a few months prior to this stage of the proceedings. I’d taken it to a layout belonging to a friend of mine and it soon became apparent just how much more space it needed on the corners compared to any other stock. On my friends layout it could only run wrong line to avoid any embarrassing encounters with the scenery and so I had to plan this into my layout now. This resulted in some testing alongside a MkIII coach (the longest other vehicle likely to run) and some careful measuring of track spacing:

 

 

 

This exercise revealed that the track bed on some of the corners wasn’t quite wide enough, which was rectified with the addition of 5mm strips of foamboard to each side. Eventually though, after much faffing around, the main lines were complete:

 

 

 

I was about three years in at this point and I was finally able to run some trains, so I made a video to celebrate 😊

 

 

[BluenGreyAnorak]

Wiring

 

As you’ve no doubt guessed, the layout is wired for DCC operation. It has a power bus formed of 1.5mm mains wiring, which has the advantage of being cheap and easily fixed in place. At regular intervals around the room, it’s split and terminated in a pair of WAGO connectors, which provide a handy local bus connection for droppers, which are soldered to every piece of track.

 

The whole lot is driven by a Gaugemaster Prodigy Advance2 system but is split into four power districts using Tam Valley boosters:

 

 

These work really well and their only downside is when the inevitable short does occur, the LED indicators are on each board and tricky to see as they’re tucked away under the layout. Rather then mess about with the boards though, I have a cunning plan to use optical sensors as the basis of repeater lights on the control panel, so watch this space for that!

 

With the exception of the Prodigy system itself, the entire layout runs from by a 15amp transformer like this, so there’s plenty of power to go around.

Edited March 4 by BluenGreyAnorak

[jamest]

That is very impressive. I’m guessing you had some prior knowledge of electrics/electronics as that set-up, design, and execution is very impressive. On a layout like this it seems essential, but makes me break out into a cold sweat.

 

The woodwork looks equally impressive.

 

Loved watching the warship circulate, this is going to look great with scenery, I’m hoping you have some curved viaducts in mind!

 

Thanks for sharing,

James

[BluenGreyAnorak]

Thanks James, that's very kind. No, it's my first time building anything like this, although I did get a crash course in how diode matrices work from a friend of mine who's an electronics engineer. I like designing and making stuff though, which has served me well in my other hobby of tinkering with Land Rovers 🙂 To be honest though, apart from the diodes it's mostly just switches, lights and a little bit of logic, which isn't too complicated if approached methodically. I do record everything, typically in Excel spread sheets, so I can trace what every wire and connection is like this:

 

 

Yes, there will be some curved viaducts in time. I even had one of them mocked up for a while, although since removed as the area beneath is a bit of a workbench most of the time!

 

[RobAllen]

Impressive. I’m following with interest.

[BluenGreyAnorak]

Wagon Repair Yard

 

The end of 2018 saw the track being laid for what would become a wagon repair yard. I liked the idea of this for a few of reasons – it’s a great excuse to run an eclectic mix of wagons, it could be accommodated in a fairly tight space without looking too contrived and, eventually, it would make a great setting to indulge in creating a cluttered and scruffy environment.

 

 

I’m painfully aware that I’ve just filled the whole area with track but there’s a logic to every part, which plays neatly into my desire for operational interest.

 

 

The original plan for the points on the scenic part of the layout was to use Tortoise motors, and I actually bought a stack of them in readiness. However, having had a chat to Mr Megapoints at one of the shows, I was idly considering using servo’s instead. It was then that I stumbled upon Dingo servo mounts, which was the final piece of the puzzle needed to take the plunge.

 

The Dingo mounts are very neat in that they provide a proper horizontal movement rather than the typically tight arc that servo’s usually result in. They’re also fully adjustable and can be fitted with microswitches for frog polarity and driving LED’s on a mimic panel.

 

 

 

I pre-wired the microswitches and added a small choc block to each mount so that I could build them on the bench and connect them up without soldering under the layout:

 

 

With those all in place, the next job was to wire them all up. The servo motors used off-the-shelf servo cables of varying lengths, but the mimic panel LED’s involved building a loom. I also included provision for some future signals:

 

 

A nice little feature of the track plan for the yard is the flat crossing that provides access to the cleaning bay and paint shop. It was a neat way of juggling the points to each of those areas whilst preserving the length of the head shunt. The crossing itself is a short electrofrog version and I chose to use a couple of Gaugemaster frog juicers to manage the necessary switching, which all works seamlessly:

 

 

 

[BluenGreyAnorak]

Freightliners

 

When I first started to build the layout, I had lofty ideas of methodically building and testing each section as I went along. However, it’s fair to say that progress hadn’t been as swift as I’d hoped and I was finding it increasingly difficult to stay on target. A diversion was therefore in order and as a consequence of Bachmann’s release of same, I began to get interested in the early Freightliners. Reading around a bit introduced me to the old Hornby offering and the detail kit offered by S Kits, and a cunning plan was born.

 

At this point I hadn’t done any actual modelling for years, let alone the sort of scratch fabrication that these things would require, but a good friend of mine decided that he’d build a rake too, so we egged each other on.

 

Curtesy of eBay, I acquired a number of Hornby Freightliner wagons, mostly with the early containers but also a few opens mixed in for variety. The best five were selected and, with the bogies removed, they were pinned to a piece of wood to hold them firm during the drastic surgery to come. This involved some cheap Chinese bits and my bench mounted pillar drill, which was used as a crude milling machine to remove the solid longitudinal framing from the underside of each wagon. The idea being to give a better representation of the open truss design of the prototypes. The solid cross pieces were left as they are less obtrusive when viewed side on:

 

 

With the butchery complete, I set about rebuilding the underframes with a selection of L and T section Plastruct. This was completed for each wagon with it clamped on the wooden jig again, to prevent the frames from twisting. I then added the various components from the S Kits kit, which includes a variety of white metal parts, enough for a rake of five wagons, including the all-important end wagon buffer beams:

 

 

 

The whole lot was then primed, ready for finishing:

 

 

The two outer bogies of the five wagon rake were adapted to take small tension lock couplings and fitted with some 10.5mm metal wheels, which I seem to recall were intended for HO American stock:

 

 

The S Kits kit included solid bars for the intermediate couplings but these are impractical unless you can leave the whole rake in one piece. We therefore made some magnetic couplings using small neo magnets bought via eBay (this is long before West Hill Wagon Works, et al):

 

 

With all of the fabrication complete, they were sprayed rail blue, as the real thing initially were, and added decals and etched brass handbrake wheels:

 

 

The effect, when viewed side on, was very satisfying:

 

 

Attention then turned to the containers, which are generally OK except for the toy-like doors. This was remedied by removing them, filling in the openings with thick plasticard and building a new representation on top using microstrip and wire:

 

 

 

As you can probably imagine, this was a bit if a labour of love!

 

The bottoms of some containers, enough to sit over each bogie, were weighted with lead in the recesses of the bottom face:

 

 

The original red stripes were masked up and the whole containers sprayed freight grey which, in lieu of better information, seemed like a good choice. The ends were then masked and the new red stripes across the doors reinstated with, I think, a Ford red in a rattle can from Halfords. The finishing touches were individual number transfers for each container, produced by my friend on his laser printer:

 

 

 

The open containers were also treated to a re-paint and number transfers, and were given some resin loads:

 

 

 

Whilst they don’t really bear the scrutiny of a cruel close-up, when whizzing past in a train they really look the part. This brief video includes my friends’ rake, which he’d already weathered:

 

 

Edited March 5 by BluenGreyAnorak

[5BarVT]

I’m slightly troubled by the wiring photo.  How long did it take you to work out the wiring goes under the rails?  :-)

 

I like the layout of the WRD, and as you say, each part has its place, including the loop to run round each shunt between workshop and storage roads.

 

On the annotated photo, the line under “storage roads” is a bit close to the line beside the headshunt because the two siding points are butted up to each other V to toe (afeature of Peco track that I discovered in 1972 doing exactly what you have done!).  Have you tried putting vehicles in both roads to check clearances?  (My recollection is that 7 plank wagons would pass but coaches wouldn’t.)

 

Paul.

[BluenGreyAnorak]

Haha, yes, I did wonder why I couldn't make the point motors work 🙃

 

You're right, the storage roads are rather snug but they all work ok. My original plan was only for two but I then realised there wasn't enough space to accommodate all of the wagons that could be brought in by one train, which is ten regular four wheelers or equivalent.

[BluenGreyAnorak]

Cassettes

 

Later in 2019, I turned my attention to building a cassette system to serve the fiddle yard. I’d already made provision in the West FY for a space to receive a cassette and had a basic idea of what I wanted but now had to put that into practice!

 

I looked at all sorts of types of cassette and costed various options, which was a serious consideration as I planned to build quite a lot of them. Ideally, I wanted a significant portion of my rolling stock, of which I’d amassed quite a bit by this time, to be permanently stored in cassettes. I liked the idea as it meant that trains were ready for use without having to handle the stock. This initially was supposed to be applied to passenger stock but I soon realised that it also worked for fixed formation freight stock such as the Freightliners and others that ran as block trains.

 

I looked at using aluminium angle on a ply base, but that got expensive very quickly. I then hit on the idea of using clear 4mm thick Perspex, which meant that the stock was easily visible and also leant itself to having some stock on display on wall shelves:

 

 

Each cassette was laid with code 75 track, soldered at each end to some copper clad that had been glued to the base. I soon learned that the track needed to be in two pieces with an expansion gap between them to prevent warping at the slightest temperature change. Each gap was bridged with link wires to ensure electric continuity.

 

The mechanism for linking the cassettes to the layout was created with a pair of brass strips, bent to shape such that they were sprung loaded to press against the copper clad at each end. They were connected to the fixed trackwork with link wires and it’s one of those details that I’m delighted with, as it works really well:

 

 

 

That was a bit jerky as I was doing it one handed whilst holding the camera, but in practice is much easier.

 

The longest cassette that the receiver will accept is 1200mm and I initially built seven that length that were stored end-on beneath the diesel depot part of the layout. There’s just enough room to take them out and turn them to offer them up to the FY. I think that this length is about as long as it’s practical to manoeuvre (particularly when swapping ends) and I later built some 900mm and 600mm cassettes for shorter trains or parts thereof.

 

 

In this picture you can make out the ends that I added to each cassette to stop stock falling out. These are formed of 3mm Perspex and plastic channel section glued to the inner faces of the sides:

 

 

I later built a set of shelves above the fiddle yard to take trains up to 1800mm long in combinations of all three cassette lengths:

 

 

Once I realised just how useful these things were, I started to look more seriously at train formations and set about creating all sorts of trains that will serve a purpose in my railway empire. I then looked for places that I could store even more cassettes and by building a shelf unit beneath the fiddle yard, I could store six more trains, each in two 900mm cassettes, one in front of the other. I used plywood for the sides of these as they’re less visible and Perspex had shot up in price during the pandemic!

 

 

Because I’d accumulated quite a lot of offcuts, I built some more 600mm cassettes and another set of shelfs, which is underneath one side of the duck under, for very short formation stock:

 

 

I haven’t finished yet, either. One of the jobs on my to do list is to make a bit of space under another part of the layout and build another dozen 750mm cassettes, which will give me even more options for train formations. I've also got half an idea to make a whole lot of short cassettes for all of my locos, although I'm sort of reaching the point of diminishing returns, as they're quite time-consuming to build.

 

Edited March 7 by BluenGreyAnorak

[BluenGreyAnorak]

Wagon Repair Yard Control Panel

 

February 2020 saw my attention return to the layout proper and it was time to build the control panel for the Wagon Repair Yard. Unlike the fiddle yard, I wanted the main layout to be a proper hands on experience and so I’ve gone for DCC Concepts Cobalt point and signal levers, which dictated a very different design of panel.

 

 

There was an awful lot of measuring to get to this final design, which had to be tall enough to accommodate the levers and allow finger room between them and the mimic panel above. I also wanted the innards of the whole thing to be easily accessible, so the lid hinges upwards and the front panel behind the levers lifts out.

 

The mimic panel follows a similar pattern to the fiddle yard, comprising two layers of Perspex with LED’s set into the bottom one and the diagram on paper sandwiched between the two. There are no buttons this time, which made things a little easier, and I painted the upper face of the lower layer of Perspex white then black to limit the light bleed through it.

 

 

Inside is pretty busy and incorporates two Megapoints servo control boards. The underside of the mimic panel is particularly congested and the design was refined a bit for the next panel by using tag strips instead of choc blocks for connectors. The overall size has also been altered for later panels, just to give a little more room around the levers in the base, but more of that later.

 

 

I built a matching cradle for the DCC handset and overall it’s proved to be a very useable setup.

 

 

Whilst this panel all works as intended, it may get a revisit once I’ve got the whole layout operational. In fact, I may even move away from servo control for the points altogether, which would warrant a more significant redesign. On the whole, I’m finding them more fiddly than dedicated motors, requiring more frequent adjustment to keep everything running properly.

[5BarVT]

Like that a lot!

Interesting way of placing your WAGO222s.  I’ll have to try it.

Paul.

[BluenGreyAnorak]

Thanks. Wago's are great - an easy way to create little localised wiring busbars. They're fixed with 10mm wide 3M double sided foam tape.

[BluenGreyAnorak]

Station and Depot Boards

 

2020 was a funny old year – the world stopped for a while and whilst unlike many, my work didn’t, there still seemed to be a bit more time for model railways. Having indulged a few diversions, I was now determined to press on and get the basic form of the layout finished and the next parts to build were the most complex yet – removable boards for the station and diesel depot.

 

I knew from the outset that the positions of these areas would mean that it would be impossible to get underneath and so they’d have to be demountable. So, much like an exhibition layout, they were built in modules no longer that 1200mm. The only difference was that each would be fully supported and so wouldn’t need quite so much bracing.

 

The station needed three boards, each 1200mm long but varying in width from around 400mm at the throat to 600mm at the buffers. Supports were built comprising sections of 18mm thick timber along the front edge (the scenic break line on the track plan at the start of the thread) and a length of 50x50mm aluminium angle screwed to the rear wall.

 

The three boards were constructed from 9mm ply and 47x22mm timber edges. They were joined together by means of alignment dowels and M6 knurled thumb knobs that screwed into corresponding T nuts. These were carefully positioned so that I could reach through various gaps in the track bed below to wind them in and out.

 

 

 

A ‘docking station’ was constructed at the point where the removable boards were to join the fixed layout and the joint was secured in the same way.

 

 

The three station boards are just slightly shorter than the distance between the docking station and the wall at the other end, just enough to allow the first board to be slid back to clear the dowels and for it to be lifted out. That exercise is slightly awkward and better with two people, but means I can build each board away from the layout.

 

The gap at the end will eventually be disguised by a removable station building.

 

The depot board was constructed in a similar manor except that it’s a particularly odd shape. To make pulling it out easier, it sits on a solid ‘table’ and with a small adjustment to the adjacent door frame(!), is very easy to slide out.

 

 

 

This board is held in place by its’ own weight and friction, and so doesn’t require bolting to the end of the layout.

 

It was also during this exercise that I added boards for what will become the backscene. This is just hardboard that sits in a slot at their base and is restrained by a thin batten and some plastic moulding along the top. It’s designed to be removable to work on away from the layout and will eventually be finished with a photographic backscene.

 

There was a bit of a gap in proceedings at this point but eventually by around June 2021 I’d also added the track bed for the branch line between the junction and the station:

 

 

 

Next, more track laying...

 

 

Edited March 8 by BluenGreyAnorak

[BluenGreyAnorak]

Station and Depot Track

 

The world continued to be weird in 2021 and one of the many casualties was the Warley Show. This has been a regular pilgrimage for a group of friends and I for many years, which included an overnight in a hotel (in glamorous Coventry) to make a weekend of it. By way of a substitute, one of our group came up with the idea of The Warley Alternative Tour, which would entail visits to four of our own home-based layouts and include a hotel stay (in equally glamorous Basingstoke) to get as near to the full Warley experience as we could.

 

I’m telling you all of this as it added new impetus to getting Hericombe into some semblance of operational! Over the next few months track plans were devised and track laid in the station, depot and the branch line that connects them:

 

 

 

Track joints between baseboards were effected with these neat interlocking rail aligners from ModelTech, which were very easy to use and have proven to be completely reliable so far:

 

 

Of course, track alone wouldn’t cut the mustard and so track power wiring was hastily added. So hastily, in fact, that I didn’t take any pictures. And whilst it served its purpose for the weekend, it later had to be reinstalled as I’d used self-adhesive cable tie mounts, which started to fall off after a few weeks. Second time around, these were screwed into position and the cabling generally tidied up:

 

 

 

 

 

The power for the station in particular, is fed from the 'docking station' mentioned above. The bus wiring comprises 1.5mm mains flex and power is transferred from one board to the next via ¼” mono jack plugs and matching sockets. These were chosen because they’re robust and easy to positively connect in the restricted space beneath the boards. I made some aluminium brackets on which to mount the sockets and the corresponding end of each board has a short lead with the jack plug on the end:

 

 

The depot board uses a similar connection except it’s on the side of the board as there’s no access at all beneath.

 

As a finishing touch, the end of the depot board was fitted with a 6mm thick Perspex shield as it’s in a vulnerable position just inside the door. It also gained a low profile handle to make it easy to withdraw the board when necessary:

 

 

Amazingly, the whole thing worked, albeit with manually operated points for the time being, which gave me an excuse for another video:

 

 

 

 

Edited March 9 by BluenGreyAnorak

[BluenGreyAnorak]

Diesel Depot Control Panel and First Signal

 

At the beginning of 2022 I started to build the control panels for the diesel depot and the station. The timeline gets messy from here onwards as I got distracted by other things, both railway and otherwise, so the first panel didn’t actually get completed until mid-2023! For simplicity though, I’ll keep the story together.

 

The carcasses were constructed in a very similar style to that of the Wagon Repair Yard, with a couple of minor but significant differences. Firstly, the base of the panel where the point levers sit was made marginally deeper both in front and behind the lever positions. This allowed slightly more space in front for decent labelling and slightly more behind, which eased the removal of the front panel to get at the innards. Secondly, a larger aluminium panel was made for the rear where the various connectors terminate, with a correspondingly larger hole in the carcass behind. This was to give a bit more flexibility in positioning those connectors:

 

 

The wiring was also refined in terms of general layout, the use of tag strips in place of choc blocks and the introduction of an ON/OFF switch. The latter in particular makes testing much easier without having to power the entire layout on and off:

 

 

Again, all of this was planned and documented beforehand and so, apart from swapping the polarity of a couple of point motors, it all worked first time.

 

 

 

 

 

At this stage in proceedings, there weren’t yet any point motors to control but I had installed my first signal – a Dapol junction signal – which was a bit of a milestone:

 

 

 

The only thing left to do to this panel is to add a step-down voltage converter, which is something I only thought of after I’d finished. As mentioned earlier in the thread, the whole layout operates from a single power supply. This runs at about 15v, which I’ve found to be necessary to run the boosters, otherwise locos slow down on the hills. However, running the panel and point motors at that voltage is overkill and the LED’s are rather bright! The converter will enable me to locally wind that down to around 12v.

 

The device itself came from eBay for a ridiculously small sum of money and eventually all of the panels will be fitted with one:

 

[BluenGreyAnorak]

Distractions 1 – Stock Cataloging

 

Having built the station and depot control panel carcasses, I then set about drawing up the wiring diagrams which was, frankly, a bit tedious. Consequently, I found myself distracted by other things, one of which was cataloguing my stock.

 

Partly driven by the idea of cassettes and partly because I just wanted everything to be more accessible, in July 2022 I decided that all of my stock needed to be removed from their boxes and stored properly. Between cassettes and some Bisley metal filing drawers, I had plenty of space to store everything, so there was no excuse. I drew up a spreadsheet, bought some labels from eBay and set about recording everything.

 

I also, as a bare minimum, cleaned the wheels and oiled the bearings of every item of stock and it became my mantra that nothing would run on the layout that hadn’t been through this process.

 

 

The spreadsheet allowed me to record all of the relevant details about each item of rolling stock (make and model, livery, modifications, when it was serviced, value, etc) and also gave me a better overview of my collection for when planning train formations. It also helped me identify gaps and resulted in some targeted purchases to fill them.

 

 

Recording the values (even if estimated for some of my older stock) was a bit of an eye opener but very useful for insurance purposes.

 

One of the fringe benefits of this exercise was that it allowed me to remove all of the empty boxes from the train room, which freed up a huge amount of space. I bagged these up in easily identified batches, sealed in plastic sacks with a few silica gel sachets thrown in for good measure.

 

 

This was part way through the process and I think I’m up to bag J now…

 

The spreadsheet records whether each item of rolling stock has a box and, if so, which bag it’s in should I ever need to retrieve it. The bags have been stashed out of the way in the roof of my garage.

[BluenGreyAnorak]

Distractions 2 – Bogie Bolsters

 

Whilst cataloguing my rolling stock, I realised that I’d amassed quite a collection of bogie bolster wagons  - a mix of Hornby 25t Bolster A’s and Bachmann 30t Bolster C’s. I’d also, some years earlier, acquired a stash of various Plastruct I sections and so the end of 2022 seemed like a good time to have a go at making some wagon loads.

 

I began by cutting the I sections into various lengths and spraying them with Halfords red oxide primer:

 

 

These were then glued together to form various shaped loads.

 

To secure the loads to the wagons, I bought some cheap 1.3mm sterling silver chain, the links of which scale to about 4 inches, which is correct for this type of restraint. The silver chain was then chemically blackened using Liver of Sulphur, which is a singularly obnoxious fluid that’s best used outdoors!

 

 

The wagons were treated to a coat of matt black to their chassis and wheels and a very light weathering. Too light really, as it’s barely visible in the photos.

 

With the chains and wagons prepared, the loads were first glued in place with a couple of very small dabs of super glue. Once secure, the chain was glued in position in three or four locations, depending on the wagon. The chains were teased into position with cocktail sticks and was one of the most fiddly tasks I’ve ever undertaken. It was so frustrating that I could only do one wagon per session, and so it took a couple of weeks to complete this phase of the build.

 

 

 

In my excitement of completing the chains, I completely forgot to fit cosmetic coupling hooks to the Bolster A’s:

 

 

Despite the age and relative crudity of the wagons, I think they look great when trundling past in a train and they can be seen in action here, on a friends’ layout:

 

 

[BluenGreyAnorak]

Distractions 3 – First Stab at Scenery

 

Some time earlier in 2022 I started watching Charlie Bishops’ Chadwick Parkway videos on YouTube and one of them was about building scenery. I obviously knew that my layout would need some eventually, but as I’d never done it before, in November 2022 I thought I’d take a stab at some as a bit of a trial.

 

I already had a large stash of Modroc plaster bandage, so I bought some polystyrene sheets in a couple of thicknesses, some Sculptamold and a Woodland Scenics electric foam cutter, and was ready to go.

 

As this was my first time, I tackled what is probably the simplest part of the layout – an embankment alongside plain track. I began by building up the rough shape with layers of polystyrene, which were stuck together with EverBuild 501 PVA Bond.

 

 

Note my trusty sand-filled marg tubs, which get used for weighting down all sorts of things whilst glue dries.

 

After cutting and sanding it to the desired shape, it was finished with Modroc and Sculptamold, before being fitted with a 5.5mm ply fascia. Altogether a satisfying but incredibly messy exercise!

 

 

Next came the embankment between the main running lines and the station above and behind. Because of the way it was supported on the framework beneath, it was easier to build this with the polystyrene sheets positioned vertically:

 

 

 

When shaped, this was treated to the same Modroc/Sculptamold finish.

 

Because the fiddle yard concealed beneath the station was to be illuminated, I wanted the links to the scenic sections to comprise quite long curved tunnels, to prevent light spilling out. The tunnel at this end was constructed with ‘bendy’ MDF for the sides and a ply top, all of which was painted matt black inside. It was sized to fit over the track bed and sit on the supporting framework beneath:

 

 

Before the tunnel was fixed in place, the concealed track was also painted matt black:

 

 

 

With the tunnel shell in place, the embankment was extended over it, around the curve, but finished just short of the end:

 

 

Eventually, the tunnel will get a scenic add-on comprising a portal and a few inches of tunnel lining, before it all fades to back. Those few inches of track will also be ballasted before the tunnel entrance is completed.

 

For the time being though, the embankment was dressed and finished just short of where the join will be, to match the adjacent section:

 

 

 

When the Sculptamold eventually dried, it was given a couple of coats of Hobby Craft brown poster paint with some orange mixed in. I was hoping to replicate the orangey red colour of south Devon cliffs, but it’s not even close and so will need to be repainted 🙄

 

 

Edited April 8 by BluenGreyAnorak